


Socks

by anno_Hreog



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Gen, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-09-11
Updated: 2013-09-11
Packaged: 2017-12-26 07:23:24
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,662
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/963187
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/anno_Hreog/pseuds/anno_Hreog
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“Oh, you’re not dead yet, Severus,” the headmaster of Hogwarts assured him. “But you will be, if we don’t get you out of those wet socks. Dreadful night to be out, isn’t it?”</p><p> </p><p>[Written in 2005, before <i>The HalfBlood Prince</i> had come out. Ah, those were the days.]</p>
            </blockquote>





	Socks

The afterlife began with cold wet feet. That selfish fool Rookwood left Snape behind without so much as shaking his body lying prone in a puddle, when he fled the abandoned Muggle building. The Aurors would arrive any second now. Snape’s worn, cracked boots were soaked.

“There now.” Someone pulled him up and Snape smelled lemons. “You must be chilled to the bone.” 

Snape expected old Charon waiting for him at the Styx. Maybe St. Peter at the pearly gates. In his secret heart of hearts, he’d expected his mother. But the guardian of the afterlife looked over half-moon glasses and chuckled.

“Oh, you’re not dead yet, Severus,” the headmaster of Hogwarts assured him. “But you will be, if we don’t get you out of those wet socks. Dreadful night to be out, isn’t it?”

Magic fatigue could be counted as a good thing, especially when things happened so quickly you didn’t know if you were dizzy from the turnaround or the drain. Before he knew it, Snape was sitting in Albus Dumbledore’s cozy inner office, cradling a cup of hot cocoa. He could do with a dash of brandy in it, but Snape didn’t want to push his luck.

“That’s better now, isn’t it?” Dumbledore asked as he pulled up an ottoman. Snape pulled off his tight, water-logged boots. His socks were old and grey, with his toes peaking out. He cringed at the smell. 

“Those should go off, too,” Dumbledore said kindly. “The house-elves can wash them.”

“They’re better off burnt,” Snape mumbled. Dumbledore frowned at him.

“Well, they’re still worth saving,” he said, but walked to his cabinets and rummaged around for a while. “Ah! I knew I had a good pair.” Dumbledore held out a pair of fuzzy purple socks with yellow dots on them. On closer inspection, Snape saw they were smiling bumblebees. 

Dumbledore nodded expectantly, and Snape found he was pulling on the ridiculous socks. It was difficult to refuse him, the man who rescued him before the aurors arrived, who gave him a chair in front of a warm fire, who worried about Snape’s feet getting cold. Who thought even dirty old socks with holes in them could be saved.

*

Dumbledore gave him socks for every occasion. Yellow with pink and green polka dots for Easter. Snitches and brooms for Quidditch matches. Red and white stripes for Christmas. Snape put them away in his sock drawer. By his fifth year teaching at Hogwarts, he had a set of drawers just for socks. He had to wear them sometimes. It would be a waste otherwise. But only in dire washing emergencies. He had his robes made to drag on the stone floors of Hogwarts, so the no one could see his socks.

*

Snape bought two kinds of socks for himself: white cotton and black wool, sensible and practical. Laundry was a problem at Hogwarts – the house-elves had a strict “no clothes” policy. The students and staff relied on a laundry room run on the strongest of scourgifying and washing charms. Flitwick renewed them every week, along with a handy folding charm. But Snape was averse to anything but his darkest robes and primmest of shirts entering the common laundry room. No one would see his undergarments. No one. And socks were private.

So he washed them himself. Like any bachelor, he threw them in together. His white cotton socks came out grey and fuzzy. His black wool socks shrank. Snape shrugged his shoulders. He didn’t care about such things, he told himself. Comfort and clean socks. That was for other men. Men with families and love. Snape had Hogwarts.

*

Draco knew there was a secret to the socks. Otherwise that old fool Dumbledore wouldn’t give them to Professor Snape every year at Christmas. The Slytherins who stayed behind joked about the senile headmaster and his ridiculous gifts, how the Potions master grudgingly accepted with a grimace. Draco never saw them himself; Mummy wanted him home for the holidays every year. And Professor Snape’s severe black robes revealed nothing. His socks had to be special, Draco just knew it.

*

They were all he could think about in his sixth year: what Professor Snape’s socks would look like. The magic socks he decorously kept hidden away. The Mudblood’s shapely legs in knee-socks were on half the Slytherin boys’ top five wank list. Crabbe waxed moronic over Madame Hooch’s striped socks and Quidditch toned calves. Vulgar plebes, all of them. Draco imagined the elegant turn of Professor Snape’s ankles, his long narrow feet, his high arches. His socks would be just like him, perfect and sophisticated, charcoal grey and dark navy and black. A cashmere silk blend, Draco was sure. He tried to block out Goyle’s loud snores, and his hand reached his cock as he imagined Professor Snape, pulling his long robes up ever so slightly – who cared what the reason was – and revealing a glimpse of those secret socks – he stroked faster, breath hitching in shallow gasps – and neatly edged tops a dark contrast to pale skin – oh, just an inch of skin – and he bit his lips not to let out a sound as he came. He reached under his bed and grabbed his own grey socks, inadequate things, the Malfoy crest embroidered on the tops, and wiped his off his hand.

*

Theo Nott didn’t start it – that was Pansy Parkinson. But whoever was to blame over flying hexes, they were left with a miniature pond in the middle of the Slytherin common room, and no number of reducing spells could get rid of it. And by 10 p.m., the sixth year prefects, Draco Malfoy and Millicent Bulstrode were frantic. 

“What is the meaning of this?” Professor Snape’s low voice was heard over the crying first and second years.

He was staring at the swamp in the middle of the common room, one eyebrow arched.

“Mr Malfoy? Miss Bulstrode?” Draco wished he could sink into the floor. No, rather he could push Parkinson face down in that puddle and drown her. 

“I… we…” he stuttered. He’d failed him, failed Professor Snape. Draco was no better than that stupid Scarhead, making messes and disappointing the Professor. He was…

Professor Snape waved his hand at the room and the Slytherins fell silent. 

“Miss Bulstrode, go fetch Professor Flitwick. Mr Malfoy, send the lower years to bed,” he barked out. “Why they’re up at this hour…”

And then, Draco saw them. Professor Snape hitched up his heavy black robes to walk through the puddle. He saw them, purple and fuzzy, with yellow dots on them. Professor Snape’s socks.

Professor Snape caught him staring and looked him in the eye, daring him to say anything. Draco’s mouth went dry and he couldn’t move. 

“Well, Mr Malfoy?” His black, hooded eyes. His socks. His purple socks, with yellow bumblebees on them.

Draco pulled himself together. “Yes, sir,” he said and he waved at the snivelling first and second years. “Come along, you lot.”

*

Christmas day, Dumbledore gave him a pair of fuzzy orange wool socks with green stars and hearts around the top. But Snape found in his rooms, thin box tied with a silver ribbon. He opened it to find soft, fine socks in a dark green argyle pattern. “For special occasions,” the note said. He recognized Mr Malfoy’s hand.

*

In his seventh year, Draco didn’t go home for Christmas, for the first time in his seven years at Hogwarts. The war was waging outside, and who knew where his parents were. Hogwarts was all he had left. 

This year he’d imagined purple and yellow socks and wanked himself until his hand cramped, until he suspected he was turning into a mad house-elf. If Professor Snape noticed him staring a second too long, he made no sign. The professor was a busy man, teaching Potions, carrying on with the barmy Headmaster’s war effort, the real power behind that show-off Potter. He didn’t have time for silly things. For a silly boy like him. 

Draco set aside the last of the first years’ potions essays and looked around the good professor’s quarters. The basket of laundry was over-flowing. It was the least he could do to help Professor Snape.

He sorted out the socks – the greyish cotton ones, the shrunken black wool ones, the occasional purple or yellow one – and set the laundry charms humming in the sink. Lilac colorued bubbles floated out and filled the air with a nice lavender scent. 

As Draco combined a set of drying and fluffing charms around the socks whirling around him, he imagined the happy smile on Professor Snape’s face when he found neatly folded clean socks the next morning.

*

Snape stalked through the dungeons of Hogwarts. Late, always these meetings would run late. He was cold and tired and hungry, and Potter had been insufferably self-righteous. _Again_. Snape scowled at the empty hallway. He swung open the doors to his quarters and stopped shock still at the sight.

Draco Malfoy stood in the middle of the room, purple and green and yellow and orange socks clinging all over his black school robes. The room was warm and had the faint clean smell of lavender.

“Mr Malfoy?” He couldn’t bring himself to ask more. Draco’s eyes were wide and a blush stained his pale cheeks. 

“I…” he faltered. “I…”

“You did the washing?” Snape asked again. The boy looked stricken. 

Draco started pulling socks off himself. “St- sta – static,” he said, finally. “They cling.” He had a handful of socks in every color, and his eyes couldn’t meet Snape’s.

“So they do,” Snape said, and pulled off the purple sock with yellow bumblebees on them. The boy had done this, for him. For Snape. “Well done, Mr Malfoy,” he said gently. The boy finally looked up at him and smiled shyly and Snape’s face didn’t quite crack as he managed a smile back.

After all, Snape knew the importance of warm, clean socks.


End file.
